Evaluating Coaches Across Continents' 2015 impact so far

Comprehensive needs analysis allows CAC to identify the greatest social impact needs and priorities, and to design locally relevant programmes for partners. Baseline statistics demonstrate the initial attitudes, skills and knowledge of the coaches, including what they know about child protection, their understanding of football for social impact, and their inclination towards gender equality in sport.

For example, only 15% of participants had ever coached a game of football for social impact before working with CAC in 2015, and only 7% of coaches had training in how to protect children on the sports field. In many communities, less than a third of local coaches were coaching or planning on coaching girls prior to working with CAC in 2015. In some programmes, none of the participants were coaching or planning on coaching girls.

CAC’s WISER M&E model makes it possible to follow the growth of the organisation, as well as identify the successes and impact that programmes are having year-round in communities.

Since the beginning of 2015, 19,376 on-field coaching education hours have been dedicated to local communities. CAC has worked with 51 implementing partners, 823 community partners, and 2,225 local coaches. To date, CAC has reached 180,879 youth in 2015. At this time of year in 2014, CAC had only worked with 42 implementing partners, 685 community members, 1,859 local coaches and had reached 132,375 youth.

In addition to on-field coaching education, CAC delivers year-round support to partner programmes. This includes online coaching education, curriculum development, strategic planning, M&E development, social media support and sharing best practices. This maximises social impact and allows for the incredible impact our partners achieve in their local communities.

Some of the successes so far this year have included:

• Local coaches implementing the CAC curriculum with indigenous children to educate on drug abuse in Mexico
• The launch of a menstruation awareness and sanitary towel collection campaign to, “encourage men to be more involved in what the adolescent girls and women go through in their menstruation cycle” in Nairobi, Kenya
• The creation of an entirely new NGO, ‘Green-Kenya’, for better implementation of the CAC curriculum in Kenyan communities with a specific focus on the environment
• The expansion of implementing partner Uni Papua, to 28 communities in Indonesia
• The start of numerous new female empowerment projects through sport initiatives in Cameroon, Kenya, Zanzibar and India
• The incorporation of CAC HIV games into daily trainings in Hyderabad, India; a topic that was previously avoided due to cultural sensitivities. Local coaches are now openly discussing sexual education in Hyderabad through sport for social impact
• The Mbarara community in western Uganda working to build primary and secondary schools with playgrounds in order to provide children with sport for social impact education